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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could seem playful, but the installation honors a little-known biological feat: experts have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing commission celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the group's issues relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

On the long access ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense layers of ice appear as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and demanding process is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is death. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a asset to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate essence in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of use."

Individual Struggles

She and her relatives have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening rules on herding. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the only realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|